The mud season in autumn and spring in Ukraine also has a big impact on the ability of the warring parties to launch offensives. While a network of hardened roads have made logistics much easier, cross-country assaults are still very much inhibited by the mud, keeping the attackers on the roads and thus much more vulnerable.

The same pattern can be found in the Netherlands. Large farms and rich farmers in former swamp areas, small farms and poor farmers on sandy inland soil.

Deportation of conquered populations was an important instrument of government of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, this deportation was not exceptional.

Defragged history has an excellent series about the 80 years war, they're on YouTube. She goes into great detail, is more or less impartial and she knows how to pronounce Dutch and Spanish names. She also has excellent shorter series about the Batavia shipwreck and the Kursk disaster.

Netherlands was HUGE at the time!

This was actually just what the Russians did in the Brusilov offensive in 1916, where they dug hidden trenches towards the Austro-Hungarian trenches to insure that the soldiers did not have to cross a wide no mans land.

I'm not sure, but maybe one of the reasons why this succeeded was that there was no vigorous patrolling of no mans land by the Austro-Hungarian army. If you detect such trenches, you are warned that an attack is imminent and you can direct artillery towards it.

During the battle of Arnhem in 1944, the St Elisabeth Hospital was a hospital in ARnhem. A medical unit of the British 1st Airborne Division, the 16th Parachute Field Ambulance, went to the building on 17 September 1944 to take care of the wounded of the 1st Parachute Brigade there. They arrived early in the evening and found, in addition to Dutch medical staff, a German medical unit, both busy tending to wounded of both sides. The British took over control of the hospital but allowed the Germans to keep working here. From that moment, Dutch, British and German medical staff work together to take care of incoming wounded from both sides.

The Hospital found itself in the front line on 18 September. While the war was raging outside, the people inside kept working to save lives. Late in the evening of 17 September, a group of German soldiers was cut down on the driveway of the hospital by British soldiers of C Company of the 1st Parachute Battalion.

As many as four times, the control of the hospital switched from one warring party to the other. When on 19 September the Germans finally took control of the hospital, they ordered the British medical staff to be transported into captivity. Major Longlang, the British doctor in charge, persuaded the Germans to leave two surgical teams behind to help the Germans tend to the continuing inflow of wounded. As a result many lives were saved, including that of brigadier Hackett who was wounded in Oosterbeek.

The Dutch underground, including resistance fighter ‘Piet van Arnhem’, was also active in the hospital. With their help, several British soldiers were smuggled out of the hospital to enable them to go into hiding and escape to their own lines. In this way, brigadier Lathbury and brigadier Hackett, among others, were saved from German captivity. Finally, it was decided in the middle of October that all British still present in the hospital would be transported to a POW camp in Apeldoorn.

>There's lots of stories and media about the Night Witches.

The 588th Night Bomber Regiment/46th "Taman" Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment was one of many tactical light bombing units of the Soviet Union, these units were intended for short range tactical and harassing attacks and thus would not bomb German cities, until the end of the war when the front was in Germany.

The Soviet Union launched a number of bombing raids against Berlin in 1941 and 1942, by naval planes operating from Saarema island and by long range air force units. The last attack in 1942 involved 200 planes. The damage inflicted by the attacks was very moderate however and the Soviet planners decided their heavy bomber assets would be better employed against military targets closer to the front.

More on the Soviet bombing raids against Berlin

Shortly before the end of the war Berlin was again bombed by 111 Soviet planes.

Most of the Belgian army (around 137,000 men) retreated and then held their part of the Western front, the Yserfront until 1918.

Several thousand men fled occupied Belgium via the Netherlands to Great Britain where they registered with the Belgian recruitment agencies. From the spring of 1915, the Germans closed this escape route with a heavily guarded border barrier along the Belgian-Dutch border, based on an deadly 200V electric fence, called "De Dodendraad" (The Wire of Death) by the Belgians. Smugglers then specialized in transferring war volunteers, but their numbers still declined. Among the 33,500 Belgian internees in the Netherlands, fewer and fewer soldiers fled to rejoin the field army behind the Yser. In October 1916, the Belgian government finally forbade the internees to flee.

Because the Belgian front sector was protected by large inundations which made German attacks difficult it was a relatively quiet sector of the trenches with no large operations comparable to the great battles at Ypres, the Somme or Verdun. The Belgians did refrain from larger actions because they knew they could not replace their losses.

The Drenther Crusade was a military campaign launched against the inhabitants of Drenthe with the approval of the Papacy in 1228 and lasting until 1232. It was led by Willibrand, Bishop of Utrecht, commanding an army composed mostly of Frisian crusaders.

The crusade was part of a longstanding conflict[a] between the Drenthers (or Drents) and the bishopric of Utrecht over the prerogatives of the bishop and the religious practices of the Drenthers. The incident which turned the conflict into a crusade was the killing of Bishop Otto II of Utrecht in the Battle of Ane in 1227. Willibrand received papal authorization for a crusade on the grounds, it appears, that the Drenthers were heretics for defying their bishop. He preached the cross in Frisia between the summer of 1228 and the winter of 1230–31. There were several battles, but the crusade ended inconclusively in September 1232.

Hendrik van Borculo was granted the Coevorden fief. In turn, the Drenthers erected a Cistercian nunnery in repentance for the slaying of Otto II and his followers at Ane.[ When the conflict conclusively ended in 1240, the bishop's princely authority was intact but his manorial authority was weakened (soon to disappear completely) and the Drenthers were amnestied.

There was a Crusade in the Netherlands from 1228 until 1232.

Soay sheep, an ancient breed from the Scottish isles, also shed their wool

Yes, they had counted on capturing much more Russian railway material.

Alt-Erlaa in Vienna has about 10,000 inhabitants. It is very popular subsidized housing,featuring rooftop and indoor swimming pools and club and hobby spaces, as well as all amenities (shops, schools, church etc) within the complex.

You can get a Roman gold ring for a very reasonable price

Mortality from all wounds decreased dramatically across the 20th century, from 8.5% among US troops in World War I, to 3.3% in World War II, to 2.4% in Korea, and leveling at 2.6% in Vietnam.

The mortality of patients with abdominal wounds in the US army declined from 21% in World War II to 12% in Korea and 4.5% in Vietnam

Also, for most of the history of warfare, at least until World War II, disease usually killed at a higher ratio than battle wounds: nearly 8:1 in the Napoleonic Wars, 4:1 in the Crimean War, 2:1 in the Civil War, 7:1 in the Spanish-American War, and 4:1 in World War I [29, 132]. In World War II, the ratio decreased to 0.1:1; in Korea and Vietnam, to 0.2:1; and in the 1992 Gulf War, to 0.1:1.

The source of these numbers is a great overview of advances in battlefield medicine over the centuries

Since 1900, 1,200 country houses have been demolished in England. In Scotland, 378 architecturally important country houses have been demolished,

Dawn Wind by Rosemary Sutcliff is another good (childrens) novel about the life of a commoner in the Saxon age.

Emma always spoke French with her husband, as he didn't speak German and her Dutch was very limited in the beginning.

All her sons died before their father, leaving him without an heir, so after Sophie's death William III first tried to marry an opera singer, which was forbidden by parliament. Then he married the 41 year younger Emma of Waldeck-Piermont. They had one daughter, Wilhelmina, who would become the first queen-regnant of the Netherlands. Emma served as a regent after William III died and Wilhelmina was still a minor.